Today’s translated poem is a bit less fall-positive than you might expect from this blog by now, but it’s one that rather stole my heart while I was in Russia, as its simplicity made it easy to learn and remember.
The text is “Autumn” by Alexei Nikolaevich Plescheev, a revolutionary poet of the 19th century — arrested with Dostoevsky and acquainted with many other well-known Russian writers — who also (they say) wrote poems for children. “Autumn” seems to be one of those, as it has a simple, sing-songy rhythm, and it seems to be a popular work for children to recite.
(I also found it in my beloved Big Poetry for Small Children book, so, there’s that.)
I’ve read that there’s some doubt that Plescheev was the real author, and what’s more, he seems to have another, official poem called “Autumn” from 1863. However, he’s credited as the author in anthologies, so I’m going with it.
In any case, in this poem, “Plescheev” uses simple language to describe the deepening gloom as a cold, rainy Russian autumn sets in.
Here is the full text, with an image from my book:
Осень
Осень наступила,
Высохли цветы,
И гдядят уныло
Голые кусты.Вянет и желтеет
Травка на лугах,
Только зеленеет
Озимь на полях.Туча небо кроет,
Солнце не блестит,
Ветер в поле воет,
Дождик моросит…Зашумели воды
Быстрого ручья,
Птички улетели
В тёплые края.
There’s also a pretty little musical version, set to music by César Cui and sung by nine-year-old Alexandra Afoshina.
To give you an idea of the original’s meaning, here’s a (mostly) literalist translation:
Autumn
Autumn has come,
The flowers have withered,
And naked shrubs
Drearily look on.Grasses in the meadow
Wilt and turn yellow,
Only the winter crop
Greens in the field.Rainclouds hide the sky,
The sun doesn’t shine,
Wind howls in the field,
Rain comes in a drizzle…The waters have begun to murmur
In the fast-running creek,
The birds have flown off
To warmer climes.
Kind of blah, right? That’s because 75% of the fun of this poem lies in its form.
The meter is trochaic trimeter, or three feet of “DA-da” per line. (DA-da, DA-da, DA-da.) Each of the four quatrains has an alternating masculine and feminine rhyme scheme, which you could represent like this:
AbAb CdCd EfEf GhGh
The capital letters represent “feminine” rhymes, in which the final syllable is not stressed, whereas the lower-case letters represent “masculine” rhymes that are stressed on the final syllable. This pattern changes the meter a bit, so while the first and third lines go “DA-da DA-da DA-da,” the second and fourth run more like “DA-da DA-da DA.”
Honestly, if it weren’t divided like that, the rhythm would get tiresome, fast.
Feminine rhymes are always a challenge in English, and even if you manage to arrange perfect rhymes, it can sound heavy-handed. For that reason I went with near-rhymes or assonance for those lines, while still keeping the final unstressed syllable.
However, even the masculine rhymes, you’ll notice, slip into near-rhymes (or, okay, some very slanted slant rhymes).
Guess I’m getting lazy…
In any case, I preserved the trochaic trimeter, just adding an additional unstressed syllable to the front of the line at times to better connect each verse. I’d also hoped to keep the language as simple and straightforward as the original, but that was something that didn’t quite go as I’d hoped.
Anyway, without further throat-clearing, here’s my attempt at a formal translation of “Autumn”…pending further revision:
Autumn
Autumn’s come upon us,
Summer’s blooms gone dry;
Shrubs with leafless branches
Cheerlessly stand by.
Grasses in the meadow
Wilting, turning bronze,
There’s only sprouts of emerald
In fields of winter crop.
Rainclouds hide the heavens,
Not a ray of sun;
Winds howl in the meadows,
Panes with drizzle run…
The brooklet’s chilly waters
murmur as they rush;
Flown to warmer quarters,
The little birds have hushed.
Okay, so…
<litany of things I’m not satisfied with> I’m none too happy with “bronze/crop,” nor with the sound of the whole second stanza, nor with the repetition of meadow where the original uses two different words, nor with the awkward syntax of “panes with drizzle run.” </litany> But that said, I’m happy for now.
Anyway, back to you!
What is autumn for you? “Enchantment for the eyes,” as with Pushkin, or dried-up flowers, as with our supposed Plescheev?
